Guilt
by OrtumnAllbones
Summary: When Lea realised Kairi was afraid of him, he felt an alien emotion and decided to put right what Axel had done wrong, whether Kairi likes it or not! Cute oneshot of Lea and Kairi's time training together. Will add more chapters if people like and Review!


Axel walked out of his bedroom, yawning as he stretched. When Kairi saw him she bolted! His heart panged a twinge of something unexpected, it almost hurt!

He stood still, unable to move. Kairi's expression played in his head like a broken record. The way her eyes widened when she saw him, how her tiny bottom lip had quivered and her throat rippled supressed whimpers, then, with shaking legs she fled from him. FLED! Leaving her fruity porridge to cool on the old oak table of the brick house they dwelled within, the porridge stained blue as the blueberries wilted.

"What is this?" He muttered; hand clutched to heart, his brow hung quizzically low. "Am I… sad? No. Let's see…" He pondered. "I feel… shame? I think she was scared… I feel kinda responsible for that – oh…"

Guilt. Guilt was not something he had experienced much in his human years; though he had done plenty to feel guilty for, absolutely! But fleeing from teachers and avoiding livid parents had been too fun for guilt to take effect.

"So, this is what being grown up feels like…" He lifted the bowl of porridge as he passed the table and left the musty-scented house, not taking the time to layer his leather coat over his tank even though the morning dew remained in the air, raising goose bumps on his arms.

He searched the woods, the twisted trees and looked down at the deep mossy crevices in the earth as he walked above them, shooing hungry birds away from the porridge with a wave of his hand.

"Kairi?" He found her anxiously sat on a fallen log in a clearing overlooking the timeless world Merlin had settled them in. The view was hazy, only the tallest trees peaked over the morning mist below a haze of peach sky.

She leapt when she heard his voice, eyeballing him over her shoulder. "You not hungry?" He dared to walk closer, he stopped when Kairi stood and backed away. Her better foot turned; ready to take her weight and flee the moment he stepped away from the footpath. "Here," he held it out to her and rubbed the back of his head, "you uh… have a bad dream or something?"

"What?"

"You just seem really jumpy, that's all."

She balled her hands into fists. "I'm not! I'm just not hungry right now!"

"Alright," he moved to set the bowl down on the wet rock closer to the hills edge. Frantic footsteps squelched on the wet grass and felt a harsh shove to his side as those footsteps ran passed him, causing him to stumble on one foot. "Hey!" he grabbed Kairi's wrists as she ran.

"NO! Get off me!" Her feet left the floor as she tugged her wrists in his grip and tried to kick him! Summoning her flowery Keyblade into her restrained hand, angling it so it grazed his neck.

He dropped her with a surprised cry and she hurtled away again, not eluding the sweep of his long arms, tightening around her like an iron rope, pulling her tight to his chest, her arms trapped beneath his.

"Let go of me!" She flailed.

"Would you calm down?" He scowled, tightening his grip each time she kicked.

"No!"

"Just let me talk to you!"

"Get off!"

"Fight all you want I'll just talk to you anyway."

"You promise you'll let go of me if we talk?"

"Yeah!"

"Fine." She went still and let him set her down. Immediately, she ran again, her knees knocking.

"Woa, woa woa!" He grabbed hold of her upper-arms and forced her to sit upon a thick fallen log as if she were a bad behaved child set in time out. "What is with you?" He bent so his head was at her level. He could see the distrust in her eyes and… fear.

She tried to slap his hands from her arms to no avail. "I got away from you once! I can do it again!"

"Hey, I get it! If I'd treated me the way I treated you I wouldn't trust me either. But that's in the past. We don't know how long we're gonna be here! Wouldn't it be better if we got along? We're here to train together and when we leave we'll need to look out for each other. That's not gonna happen if we can't move forward."

"_Trust_ _you_?" She exclaimed. "How can I? You kidnapped me! That's all I know about you!"

"Fine," he let go of her and sat beside her. "What do you wanna know? You can ask me anything!"

Kairi shifted in her seat, her legs shaky with adrenaline. He was sat closest to the footpath, she would have to flee passed him is she wanted to escape, but Axel had such long arms he'd proved it impossible.

She stared at him warily, her mouth a straight line, her brow low above stern blue eyes. Her hands gripped the worn out bark of the log creaking beneath both their weights. "…How tall are you?"

He raised his short brows he was so surprised by the simple question. "Six foot seven."

"That's tall!" She pondered. "Are your parents tall?"

"They both were."

"_Were_?"

He rested his cold forearms on his knees, his legs so long he had to stretch them out. "Xemna – I mean, Xehanort… A lot of people went missing because of him in my world, they were used as experiments to make the heartless and, well… a lot of hearts just couldn't handle it. It killed them."

She lowered her head, her expression softened but she never took her eyes off him. "Oh… I didn't know that. That must have been hard for you."

"Isa too, we used to sneak into the castle to see if we could find what happened to them. We only ever found one person… don't know what happened to her though."

"_Isa_?"

"The guy with the blue hair that caught you after you got away from me in the Realm Between Worlds."

"Oh! That guy." He saw her wince as she remembered him, Saix had that effect on people and now… now it seemed he did too… That was the last thing Axel had seen coming.

"What about you?" He asked.

"Me?"

"Yeah, you. I don't know much about you either. You asked me about my parents, what about yours?"

"I don't know… Sora found me washed up on the beach when I was little. I don't remember where I came from or if I even had parents."

He sat a little more upright. "Oh!"

"But you know, the Mayor and his wife raised me as their own. I call them my parents and they make me so happy! Mom cooks great fruit pies and dad, he's always working but he's really good with his hands, he was a handyman before he was mayor. He taught me how to drill hole into seashells so mom could teach me how to make things from them."

"That sounds really nice." He commented, relieved that she was opening up a little more. "How do they feel about you being here?"

"They didn't want me to come. Sora and Riku had to fill dad in on the Heartless, the Darkness and what it all means. Now he knows why so many Islanders are still missing, not everyone returned." She sadly shook her head. "They got used to the idea of me leaving after a while but I don't think they're happy about it."

"Sounds tough… I'm kind of happy I don't have to deal with that."

"Did you leave any family behind when you became a Nobody? Were you gone a long time when you were Axel?"

His face became sullen. "No." He quipped. "Everyone was already gone, no one was left. Isa was alone too so we took care of each other and got a studio apartment together even though we were kids."

"Were Isa's parents killed by Xehanort too?" She gaped.

"No, me and Isa, we have a theory...for Darkness to enter the world something bad has to happen, right? Something has to happen that opens the door and let all the bad in. Well, there was a flood, and the flood made a lot of people really sick because of contamination. _Loads_ of people died," he sighed, the event memorized in his mind, "can't forget something like that. Ansem the Wise opened his home to one of the orphans and started looking for ways to improve our lives, starting with the heart."

"Sounds like you had a really tough life Lea."

"Nah," he shook his head, "the toughest thing was living with Isa! He's so uptight and has a really bad attitude."

"I remember!" He smiled when she was relaxed enough to giggle. "Did he tell you that I hit him?"

"You didn't!" He marvelled.

"I did!" She giggled again. "I've never seen anyone get so mad! He didn't know what to do! He couldn't harm me because of Sora so he put me in a cage." She paused. "Actually… it was really scary…"

He sighed, rolling his neck into a stretch. "Kairi, listen, I'm sorry about all that, all the trouble I caused… It was wrong of me. I'm sorry." He bowed his head.

She considered his apology for a while and noticed that her legs had stopped trembling. "You seem different now."

"Well, being a Nobody changes you. I was a Nobody for so long it took me nearly five minutes to work out how I felt this morning. Working out what I'm feeling… finding out which emotion is which… it's really hard after feeling nothing."

She frowned. "Why was it hard this morning?"

"I felt guilty." He plainly said. "I saw your face when you ran, I feel really bad that I can scare you that much."

She blushed. "Scared sounds a bit too strong… afraid is better, I think. But… I'm not used to being afraid."

"You're a really brave person Kairi." He stared ahead.

She shook her head. "Not as brave as Sora."

"You mean not as stupid as Sora."

"Hey!" She playfully pushed him, a great different from the sharp shove he received not too long ago.

He chuckled as she laughed, relived that they were improving.

The sun had risen a little more, drying the dew into soft sparkles the light reflected off, casting a clean glow in shades of green, bouncing off the grass and every leaf as the dawn turned from peach to blue, streaky white clouds hid behind the forming fluffy autocumulous clouds as birds tweeted their morning song.

"I wish Sora could see this." She said to the air as they both looked out at the scenery, the mist melting to the earth. "Even though he's been to so many places and seen so many wonderful things… I wish he was here. He'd like this. It's pretty."

"And I wish Roxas was here. Actually, I wish he was _anywhere_."

"Roxas is Sora's Nobody, isn't he? Sora said he was your best friend."

"Yeah," sadness easily stirred within him, "that's why I kidnapped you, actually. I thought if I could find Sora and reach his heart," he put his own hand to chest for emphasis, "perhaps I could draw Roxas out of him."

"There's something I don't understand." She gained his attention. "Roxas returned to Sora, but he's still Sora. Axel returned to you… but you still seem like Axel, just a bit more… emotive, I guess. So, are you and Axel more alike than Sora and Roxas?"

"That's…! A really good question. I guess it's because I was a Nobody for much longer. I mean, I was a kid when I became a Nobody, I had to grow up as Axel! And now I'm Lea again but I'm still the adult Axel was I guess…" He growled and threw his head back, clutching his firey spikes. "Man! It's all so confusing!"

Kairi raised a hand to her mouth when she giggled. "I think you explained that really well Lea."

"Yeah well…"

She paused; lowering her hand back down to the log it brushed his bare fingers. "I'm so sorry you couldn't save your friend."

"But I will!" He sat upright. "I can't right now, but I'm gonna get him back! I just have to find a way to do it!"

She smiled. "I can't wait to meet him again." Her stomach grumbled so loud she turned red up to her ears and held both hands to her abdomen, feeling it vibrate beneath her palms.

Axel laughed. "I knew you'd be hungry!" He looked to the discarded china bowl. Two birds were picking out the last of the blueberries and dripping their beaks in the cold oats. "I'll get you something else to eat."

"I can get my own food Lea."

"No, no." He raised a friendly palm as he stood, towering over her. "It's my fault you got scared and left it behind, I'll make you something. As an apology."

"You don't need to keep apologising Lea," she craned her neck to look up at him even when she got to her feet, "I forgive you."

"Thanks," he muttered and rubbed his head, too shy to look at her.

She raised her hands to touch his forearm, feeling the bumps of his flesh and sparse red hairs beneath her fingertips. "You're cold."

"Let's go back." She let go of him. "I'll make banana pancakes or something, that'll warm me up." He headed down the footpath.

"_You_ know how to make pancakes?" She mused.

"Why is that so surprising?"

"You just don't seem like the kind of guy that would know how to cook!" He stopped walking and stared at her, making her squirm in her shoes. "Lea? What is it? Is something wrong?"

He blinked. "Sorry! No I just… I feel like I'm forgetting something. Don't know what. Ah, well! I'm hungry! Maybe it'll come to me after breakfast?" He began walking again, the little brick house falling in sight, purple wisteria climbed its front, luminous and welcoming in the morning light.

"Maybe." She followed him. "Thanks for talking to me, Lea. I'm still not sure of you… but it's a bit better now."

"Well that's a good start. And hey, we've got all the time in the world here! Maybe we'll be friends by the time we're fully fledged Keyblade Masters?"

"I hope so!"


End file.
